Meryl Streep Sells Historical Designer Home to A-Rod

Apparently Alex Rodriguez wants to live in superstar style while serving his season suspension in Los Angeles.

Photo courtesy of Zillow
The four-bedroom, four-bath, 3,700-square-foot home has massive walls of glass surrounding a two-story living area with a floor-to-ceiling rough-hewn stone wall and fireplace.

Real estate certainly makes for strange bedfellows. Normally you wouldn’t put Oscar winner Meryl Streep in the same ZIP code as New York Yankee
Alex Rodriguez, let alone the same sentence, but the controversial baseball star recently had the good taste and sense to buy Streep’s historical Case Study home for $4.8 million — well below the original $6.75 million listing price.

It appears to be a not-too-successful flip for the actress and her husband, sculptor Don Gummer. They bought the Hollywood Hills West house in February of 2013 for $4.5 million, just after it had been redone from top to bottom by prominent architect/designer Xorin Balbes.

Photo courtesy of Zillow
The Hollywood Hills house is so famous it actually has two names: the Honnold & Rex Research House and the 1954 Research House, because it was originally designed for Architectural Products' experimental Research House program, which was a big deal in Los Angeles in the '50s and '60s.

The house is so
famous it actually has two names: the Honnold & Rex Research House and the 1954 Research House, because it was originally designed for Architectural Products' experimental Research House program, as was the
house Zac Efron recently sold. The program was a big deal in L.A., and the houses that remain from it are quite prestigious.

This one in particular lives up to expectations. It has massive walls of glass surrounding a two-story living area that opens up to a courtyard with a pool, spa, fire pit and fountains. There’s Italian marble flooring throughout, a walnut staircase with a sculptural railing, and extensive skylights over large
white walls, “for optimal display of fine art,” according to the listing. Perhaps for A-Rod’s fabled portrait of himself as a centaur?

It's reported that Rodriguez purchased the four-bedroom, four-bath home fully furnished. Its 3,700 square feet of living space includes a master suite that has a spa-like bathroom and
views of the city that seem to go on forever, and a gourmet kitchen with designer appliances including Miele, Gaggenau and Sub-Zero. Of course, the entire property is wired, with a state-of-the-art security system with control access from a smartphone.

Go Inside the Home Meryl Streep Sold to A-Rod

So what’s a nice Yankee like A-Rod doing in a place like this — especially during baseball season? While on suspension for the season due to the performance-enhancing drug scandal, he’s been keeping in shape at nearby UCLA. Apparently, he really likes the area and wants to live here in style.

Meanwhile, Streep can be seen on the big screen in The Giver, while she awaits the release of The Homesman with Tommy Lee Jones in November, and the musical Into the Woods, slated for release in December.